“I hoped so—oh, how I did hope so!” said poor Mrs. Pratt. “But then, just before we came in sight of the place, we saw that the fire had changed its direction again, and then we knew that our place must have gone.”
“That’s very strange, isn’t it?” said Margery. “I wonder why the fire should spare some places and not others?”
“It seems as if it were always that way in a big fire,” said Mrs. Pratt. “I suppose there’d been some cutting around that patch of woods that wasn’t burned. And only last year a man was going to buy the wood in that wood lot of ours on the other side of the road, and clear it. If he had, maybe the fire wouldn’t ever have come near us, at all.”
“Well, we’ll have to think about what did happen, not what we wish had happened, Mrs. Pratt,” said Margery, cheerfully. “The thing to do now is to make the best of a bad business. I’m going to send four or five of the girls to get branches. Perhaps you’ll let one of the children go along to show them the way?”
“You go, Sally,” said Mrs. Pratt to the oldest girl, a child of fourteen, who had been listening, wide-eyed, to the conversation. “Now, ain’t there somethin’ Ann an’ I can do to help?”
“Why, yes, there is, Mrs. Pratt. I think it’s going to be dreadfully hot. Over there, where we unpacked our stores, you’ll find a lot of lemons. I think if you’d make a couple of big pails full of lemonade we’d all enjoy them while we were working, and they’d make the work go faster, too.”
“The water won’t be very cold,” suggested Ann.
“Pshaw, Ann! Why not use the ice?” said Mrs. Pratt, whose interest in small things had been wonderfully revived. “The ice-house wasn’t burned. Do you go and get a pailful of ice, and we’ll have plenty for the girls to drink. They surely will be hot and tired with all they’re doing for us.”
“I’m sorry I ever said Mrs. Pratt wasn’t nice,” said Dolly to Bessie, when they happened to overhear this, and saw how Mrs. Pratt began hustling to get the lemonade ready.
“I knew she’d be all right as soon as she began to be waked up a little,” said Bessie. “This is more fun than one of our silly adventures, isn’t it, Dolly? Because it’s just as exciting, but there isn’t the chance of things going wrong, and we’re doing something to make other people happy.”